Panorama and Lake Louise

By Marina Knight

The weekend was a blur of action with the men stopping in Lake Louise for speed events and the women racing tech in Panorama. Though Marco Sullivan, a Tahoe native, was the only U.S. skier to podium (second in the year’s opening downhill) there was plenty of excitement from the slopes.
Local skiers, Lauren Ross and Jessica Kelley sparked excellent runs in giant slalom. Kelley finished 22nd overall, equaling her second best World Cup performance. She was 17th last year at Sierra Nevada, Spain, and Kelley also won a Nor-Am on the same hill last March.
For her part, Ross came blazing from 61st position in the first run to 18th place ahead of Olympic giant slalom champion and teammate Julia Mancuso. Ross skied with confidence and precision, linking turns together and charging from start to finish.
During the second run, Ross hiccupped and crashed over a transition near the end of the course. After sliding to a stop she slammed her fist into the snow at missing her best giant slalom result in World Cup.
After the women’s races, Italian Denise Karbon came away with the giant slalom win, and Marlies Schild took away yet another slalom victory.
In Lake Louise a lack of snow, wind and flat light made an otherwise snore of a course fun to watch. Little snow pack brought the terrain on the trail into sharp relief, forcing skiers to feel their way over the bumps while hurtling downhill. For racers at the front of the pack and racers who started outside the top 30, the light was relatively good. For racers in the middle, cloudy skies made it difficult to see details. Of the top ten finishers, none started after bib 11 or before bib 29.
No doubt, this challenged racer number 16, Bode Miller and other downhill threatners, Aksel Svindal, Didier Cuche and Michael Walchhofer who started in between.